Librarian and amateur sleuth Aurora Teagarden returns in Charlaine Harris’ latest mystery All the Little Liars. This should be one of the happiest times in Aurora’s life — she and her husband Robin Crusoe are expecting their first child. However, they have taken in Aurora’s 15-year-old brother, Phillip, while Aurora’s father and stepmother deal with their tempestuous marriage. Phillip discovered his father in a compromising position and foolishly hitchhiked across country to Aurora’s house, desperate to find some peace and stability. He has made a remarkably good adjustment to small town life, making new friends and joining in activities. Until one night, Phillip disappears with three of his friends. Another friend is found dead at their last known location.

Desperate to find her brother, Aurora sifts through the mess his parents have made of their family life. Is the kidnapping related to her father’s gambling? Or to his mother’s commune life? Could the neighborhood bullies be involved? Held responsible for Phillip’s disappearance by his parents, Aurora frantically takes some pretty desperate action. The police and FBI are constrained by the law, but Aurora and Robin have no such restrictions. They trace the four friends’ last known contacts and discover a malicious campaign of persecution and manipulation that shakes their faith to the core. Parenting in the digital age is a daunting task, and Aurora and Robin are just beginning to find out what it means to raise a child.

Charlaine Harris masterfully negotiates the minefield of blended families, bullying and the role of parents in their children’s moral development. She is the Anthony Award-winning author of the popular Sookie Stackhouse series, which became the basis for HBO’s True Blood. The Aurora Teagarden mysteries are now featured in a new series of mystery movies, which can be seen on the Hallmark Channel.

Trevor Noah leapt to prominence in the U.S. when he succeeded Jon Stewart as host of The Daily Show. Now, at age 32, he’s published his memoir. If that seems premature, it’s only because you haven’t read it yet. The title of Noah’s book, Born a Crime, is an indictment of the apartheid system into which the South African comedian was born.

More than an autobiography, Born a Crime is a child’s eyewitness account of life under apartheid and the upheaval that followed when that regime ended. The book’s also a tribute to Noah’s feisty, outspoken mother, Patricia. A member of the Xhosa tribe, Patricia defied the law by having a relationship with white businessman Robert Noah. Once Trevor was born, the couple couldn’t be seen in public as his parents. They enlisted a mixed race neighbor to pose with Robert and Trevor for “family” photos. The Black woman standing in the background of those photos, pretending to be the nanny, was Trevor’s real mother.

Noah finds humor and pathos in this bizarre upbringing. On a more serious note, he also speaks out strongly against domestic violence. Many years after her relationship with Noah’s father, Patricia married Ngisaveni Shingange. Noah recounts in chilling detail the gradual escalation of violence in the household and his mother’s struggle to leave Shingange. The decision almost led to her death. His stepfather’s threats against Trevor’s own life were one of the reasons the comedian turned his sights to a career in America.

Clearly, Noah has packed a lot of living into his short life — and this book only covers the first 25 years. Fans of books by The Daily Show alumni Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart will enjoy reading Noah’s autobiography, but it will also be of interest to anyone curious about life under apartheid.

Brothers George and Willie Muse were born in the 1890s in Truevine, VA, a rural and impoverished community of former slaves and their descendants — where Jim Crow reigned and “justice” might have meant lynching. Both brothers were born with albinism, which gave them golden hair, milky skin and light-sensitive pale blue eyes, which were a curse for children expected to toil in tobacco fields under the broiling sun. One day, the little Muse boys disappeared...the same day a White man in a carriage was seen riding through Truevine.

Before television or radio, America had the circus. Traveling circuses large and small entertained folks with their performers, animals and, though appalling by current sensibilities, sideshow acts. Featured along with giants, fat ladies and pinheads were the headliners billed as the Ambassadors from Mars, or sometimes as the sheep-headed cannibals Eko and Iko, aka George and Willie Muse, who eventually traveled the United States and abroad as part of the “greatest show on earth.”

Macy gives the reader two stories in Truevine. One is of the Muse brothers and their mother Harriet, an amazing woman — a Black domestic worker who repeatedly used the deeply racist legal system to challenge the influential entertainment industry to recover her children and end the exploitive working conditions under which they were held. The other, tightly entwined with the Muse narrative, is the historical detail on the circus and its freak shows, a microcosm which reflected broader societal norms. Well researched, fascinating and profoundly moving, Truevine is a story which needed to be told.

James Lasdun’s new novel The Fall Guy is a deliciously taut psychological thriller. As the story opens, three friends are on their way to spend a peaceful summer in the country, but readers soon realize there is something malevolent lurking beneath the trio’s careful manners.

Matthew, an unemployed chef, jumps at the chance to stay with his cousin Charlie, a wealthy banker, at his idyllic retreat in the mountains of New York. It will be a chance to get away from the city and figure out what’s next for him. It’s also an opportunity to spend the summer with Charlie’s wife Chloe, who he admits he is very fond of. His fondness actually seems a little more like infatuation, but not even Charlie seems to mind that Matthew covets his wife. After all, Chloe is perfect. Who wouldn’t idolize her a little bit?

As the days blaze on, and the characters spend more time with one another over elaborately prepared dinners and too much wine, the smooth veneers start to crack. The real jealousies and tensions show through. Secrets from the cousins’ past are brought to light that make readers wonder if they understood these characters at all or have any clue what they are actually doing this summer. Is Matthew just a nice guy trying to figure his life out after all? Is Charlie spending his days working on a new business deal in the city? Does Chloe know about Matthew’s mild obsession with her, or is she being secretive for another reason altogether? And, ultimately, how long can this go on before it boils over?

Lasdun weaves in the clues so deftly they are hard to recognize until chapters later. The writing is clever and quietly unnerving. Lasdun creates a unique kind of suspense which sets him apart from contemporaries.

Looking for the next good book to read or a perfect holiday gift? BCPL librarians shared some of their most anticipated books coming out this fall and winter with customers at Book Buzz sessions around the county. It’s always hard to pick, but the librarians did come up with these favorites, already popular with so many readers.

Among the many exciting fiction titles released this fall and winter are this diverse group. The Heart of Henry Quantum by Pepper Harding explores contemporary middle-aged relationships, telling the story from three perspectives — a husband, a wife and the “one who got away.” Thriller fans will devour Holly Brown’s This Is Not Over, a story of two women caught in an escalating game of cat and mouse using hidden secrets in a psychological battle that leads to an explosive ending. Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth is a beautifully written novel that crosses generations and looks at the random events that have the biggest impact on our lives. Another family story that explores how one decision can shape lives is The Mothers, an unforgettable debut novel by Brit Bennett, my favorite of this season.

What could possibly go wrong at an ordinary neighborhood barbecue? In Liane Moriarty’s latest novel Truly Madly Guilty, we meet three families left reeling after a horrible occurrence at a friendly backyard get-together.

Set in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia, Truly Madly Guilty follows thirtysomething Clementine, a freelance cellist preparing to audition with the Sydney orchestra; Erika, Clementine’s very organized and slightly OCD childhood friend; and Tiffany, Erika’s sultry next door neighbor who has a secret past.

Clementine is married to Sam and has two young daughters, Holly and Ruby. Clementine and Sam once had a loving and communicative relationship, but now they barely speak to each other. They both feel guilty and blame each other for what happened at the barbecue. Erika, who plans everything, is the child of a hoarder and lives a structured and organized life with her socially anxious husband Oliver. Erika accidently became intoxicated during the barbecue, leading her to question her recollections of what happened that night. Meanwhile, the hosts of the unfortunate barbecue are fun-loving and carefree couple Vid and Tiffany. Though they have seemingly moved on from what took place in their backyard that day, their 10-year-old daughter Dakota has been acting strangely lately, showing symptoms of depression.

Told through interwoven narratives, Moriarty flips back and forth between the present-day barbecue and the day of the tragedy. The story gradually builds to what actually happened, keeping readers guessing until the heart wrenching reveal. Truly Madly Guilty encompasses elements of both mystery and suspense, but is ultimately an examination of adult friendships, the fragility of marriages and the way feelings of guilt can overtake our lives.

You always wanted a sequel, and here it is. Dark, weird, confusing and fascinating are all words to describe this head-bending follow up. What Chuck Palahniuk began in Fight Club, he brings full circle in Fight Club 2, and he does so with panache.

The book starts several years into the future. The Narrator is now married to Marla, and they have a child. But things are not as joyful as they seem. There are worms in the apple, and things start to fall apart quickly. Palahniuk’s prose is seductive and grand; he posits ideas and immediately pivots to shred them. How powerful is an idea; can it survive the thinker? Can it pass from one generation to the next? These are the sorts of questions that Fight Club 2 demands we answer, all while it assails us with an ideology of violent revolution that’s intended to free our souls from this corporate purgatory we inhabit. Certainly, this book makes clear above anything else that Tyler Durden’s nihilistic philosophy is as juvenile as it is empty.

In the end, the questions will linger longer than the answers, and the reader may be left wondering if anything was really answered at all. But for diehard Palahniuk and Fight Club fans, this is a must read regardless. All you can do is strap in and enjoy one more wild ride. If you enjoyed this and you haven’t read the original, you absolutely should pick it up and give it a read.

If you’re a graphic novel fan, you should also consider Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta, another tale of violent revolution. For something a little less violent, Scott McCloud’s The Sculptor tells the story of a young man whose story goes from mundane to mystical and poses a lot of similar questions about our lives and what they mean. Fans of the original book should consider Brett Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, which similarly examines the sort of corporate prisons we build and what they do to us, or Charles Heller’s Catch-22, which take a little more roundabout route to examining man’s inhumanity to man and the effects of that violence on the soul.